Truth Serum
by Kathryn Claire O'Connor
Summary: The thoughts that broke through the mother of all headaches were these: She was in Vegas. She was wearing a wedding band. There was a man in bed with her, and she knew by his scent alone - gunpowder and real cologne, not pineapples and awful knock-off cologne - that he wasn't Shawn. And above all she knew that every bit of this was absolutely vodka's fault. *Lassiet!*
1. Chapter 1

**The basic idea for the first paragraph of this story came to me late - and I do mean late - one night as the start of a High School Musical story, but I had been in the mood to try my hand at writing Psych, specifically Lassiet, so I altered it to become the first paragraph below and just kept writing to see where it took me. Enjoy!**

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The thoughts that that broke through the mother of all headaches were these: She was in Vegas. She was wearing a wedding band. There was a man in bed with her, and she knew by his scent alone - gunpowder and real cologne, not pineapples and awful knock-off cologne - that he wasn't Shawn. And above all she knew that every bit of this was absolutely vodka's fault.

She really should be more concerned about the particulars of this situation then what she was, and if she weren't so hung over, she probably would be, but she isn't. And mostly that was because the scent that covered this man, her, and the bed that they were in was – although a faint one – a familiar one. She had known it for years, and yet she couldn't place it to begin with.

So she kept her eyes closed and tried to decide whether or not it was worth opening her eyes. The very sunlight coming through her eyelids was making her feel like someone was running a jackhammer through her head, so heaven knew what was going to happen when she opened her eyes.

But then it clicked, She realized who exactly was lying beside her.

Juliet sat straight up, ignoring the agony that shot through her just as the man in question rolled over in the bed and moved to throw an arm over her nude body. Instead he ended up hitting her in the nose.

"Ow!" she yelped, grabbing her nose.

"What is it?" the man beside her asked sleepily, blinking as he sat up much slower then she had. "What's wrong, baby?"

"Baby!" Juliet shrieked, ignoring the nearly unbearable pain in her head and refusing to acknowledge the discomfort in lower parts of her body as she flung the covers off, getting up out of the bed.

She was horrified to realize anew that the only thing that she was wearing was her birthday suit as she ran around the hotel room, grabbing her clothes and pulling them hurriedly on. Once she was fully dressed, she took a deep breath before turning back to the man, who was still sitting stupidly up in the bed that they had obviously shared the night before and had been watching her run around the room like a headless chicken.

She planted her hands on the edge of the dressing table, staring at him out of the corner of her eye before she looked him full in the face, saying fiercely, "Do not call me 'baby' _ever _again, am I clear, Carlton Lassiter?"

Carlton shook his head slowly, seeming to be coming to himself as he frowned at the blankets, muttering, "'Baby?"

"You called me 'baby' less than two minutes ago," Juliet said tersely.

Carlton groaned, leaning back against the headboard and closing his eyes as he asked, "What the h*** did we do last night? Wait a second!" he paused to look wildly at the ring on his ring finger, asking sharply. "What in the name of the seven levels of h*** is this?!"

"That," Juliet groaned, plopping down on the edge of the bed. "Is a wedding band."

"Wedding…?" Carlton muttered, starting to look much more like himself – sans the fact that he was still naked, anyway. "Oh, please, sweet mother of all that is holy, tell me we did not do something that stupid last night!"

"What do you think we did, then, Carlton?" Juliet snapped.

"Then we can – we can just get an annulment, and go home, and forget that this ever happened," Carlton said decidedly, putting his head in his hands.

"No, we can't," Juliet said flatly. "You can't get an annulment once you've," she waved her hand around in the air, blushing and feeling dirty for even saying the next word. "Consummated a marriage."

Carlton groaned and started to beat his head against the headboard with his eyes still closed, but stopped instantly, actually whimpering when he realized just how much extra pain it was causing him. "So we get a divorce before we go back to Santa Barbara."

"We can't wait around Vegas for a divorce to be finalized; this is only supposed to be a weekend trip! Divorces can take forever to be finalized!"

"I know that!" Carlton growled. "But what else are we supposed to do?"

"Right now," Juliet said, forcing herself to calm down. "You are going to get dressed, then go back to your room and get presentable, and I am going to do the same thing here in my room. Then you're going to meet me in half of an hour down at the dining room where we can get this figured out."

Carlton got out of the bed as Juliet darted inside the bathroom and slammed the door behind herself so that she didn't have to see her partner unclothed – the foggy memories floating back to her of last night were bad enough, she didn't need to see that in the daytime when she was at least half sober. She stood in front of the mirror and ran a brush through her chin-length blonde hair, taking calming breaths as she listened for the sound of Carlton closing her hotel room door as he left. After a couple of minutes, she heard him leave, and released a deep breath before flinging the bathroom door open for a little relief from the claustrophobic conditions of a hotel bathroom. Satisfied with her hair, Juliet brushed her teeth, and then retrieved her makeup bag. Just because she had drunk herself into oblivion the night before didn't mean that she had to look like it the next morning.

She paused as she lifted a mascara wand to her eyelashes, really noticing the wedding ring on her hand for the first time when her eye was caught by the way it glinted in the mirror. She lowered the wand and stared at that ring for a minute, smiling a little despite herself. Although she couldn't remember for the life of herself where she and Lassiter had gotten their rings, hers really was beautiful. A silver band with a crystal clear diamond; small, simple, and maybe even a little understated, but Juliet had to admit that she liked it, in spite of the circumstances that it represented.

Her smile slipped when the thought crossed her mind that this band – or even one like it – wasn't something that she would ever be getting from Shawn. Not after what she had seen him do.

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**Reviews make my day if you feel so inclined, especially since I'm not sure how good of a job I'm doing at writing these characters. Thanks!:)**


	2. Chapter 2

Juliet was downstairs and in the hotel dining room before Lassiter, and so she sat down at a table with a view of the elevator so that she could see when he came in, and decided that she wasn't go to think about anything until he was with her. Thinking still hurt, but with the turn that her thoughts had taken, she wasn't sure what part of her body it hurt more – her still-pounding head or her emotionally drained heart.

She absently twirled the ring on her hand, not even realizing that she was doing it. She bit her lip as her thoughts stubbornly turned to the reason behind this whole trip that she and Lassiter had taken.

Her partner really was one of her closest confidants, and early on in her and Shawn's relationship, he had made it clear that she was to come to him "whenever Spencer hurts you in any way." As a general rule, Juliet hadn't taken him up on it, just because she was afraid that the overprotective man might shoot Shawn over some silly little infraction. But what had happened Friday evening had been neither silly nor little, and she had decided that if Lassiter wanted to shoot Shawn over it, then so be it; she didn't really even care. She couldn't let herself care, not after she had seen her boyfriend with another woman.

Instead she had screamed at Shawn that they were over, even as he tried to get her to forgive him for his "stupid, meaningless mistake." She in turn had told him never to talk to her again – not that it was exactly plausible since they worked together – and locked herself into her car before peeling out of the driveway and breaking every speed limit in town to get to the one person that she could think of, Carlton Lassiter. The moment he had answered his door, she had burst into tears right there in his doorway, professing both herself and Shawn to be innumerable kinds of idiots. Carlton, God bless him, had ushered her into the residence, already hugging her and smoothing back her hair as she buried her face in his chest and cried her broken heart out.

_"O'Hara? What's wrong, O'Hara?" Carlton asked, running one hand over her hair while the other rubbed circles on her back._

_She opened her mouth to try and explain, but all that came out was the start of another wave of sobs, so she shook her head helplessly against the front of his now-damp button-up._

_"Is it another Sex in the City and ice cream evening?" he asked carefully._

_"Not enough," she choked._

_At this, he held her at arm's length, looking at her in concern. "Since when is that not good enough? Who died, O'Hara?"_

_"My heart," she blurted._

_"Spencer," Carlton said, his deadly tone suddenly frightening even her. "What did he do? What's going on? …Is he in jail? Are you having his baby?"_

_Juliet shook her head fiercely, unable to speak._

_"What can I do, O'Hara? Tell me what's going on here."_

_Knowing that she wasn't quite ready to voice the circumstances, Juliet just shook her head again._

_"Alright…" Carlton said slowly. "So we need something big and bright to get your mind off of this and back to normal, right?"_

_She nodded, looking at him hopefully._

_"Can you drive yourself home?" he asked, looking inspired._

_"What are we doing?" Juliet muttered, wiping at her tears._

_"We're packing, and I'm coming to your house in an hour to pick you up for a weekend away."_

_"To where?" she asked, feeling a little incredulous._

_"It's a surprise."_

_"You don't like surprises."_

_"No, but I like surprising other people. Now go pack; I have to make a couple of calls to an old friend or two."_

An hour and a half after that, she had found herself on a privately-owned plane bound for Las Vegas, Nevada, thanks to her partner being able to call in a favor from a Civil War re-enactment buddy of his. It had been after eleven in the evening when they had landed, but Juliet hadn't cared, and Carlton had made it clear that this trip was meant to make her feel better, so he had done what she'd wanted. That, of course, had consisted of both of them checking into a hotel before going out and getting royally drunk. Juliet couldn't with any sort of clarity remember anything that had happened after midnight, and that fact had led to her and Carlton's current predicament.

"Hey, babe."

Juliet was pulled out of her thoughts by an oily voice coming from a man who wasn't Carlton as said man slid into the chair across from her. She stiffened at the too-suave smile as the dark-haired man leaned towards her, asking, "A pretty thing like you all alone in Vegas? That's just too sad, gorgeous."

"Well, then, I guess it's a good thing she didn't come alone, then, isn't it?" Juliet relaxed back against her chair as she heard Lassiter come up behind her. "Oily" saw him too, paling a little as he looked up at the male detective whose tone was so hard. "You know," Carlton said, leaning his palms on the table beside Oily, saying, his tone conversational but his eyes sparking a lethal warning, "It's not really a great idea to hit on a woman the day after she got married, so I highly suggest that you get up from this table, get away from my wife, and get lost before I get to the count of three. Got it?"

Oily nodded rapidly, all of his self-confidence having gone up in smoke when Lassiter approached. The man jumped up from the table and fled, muttering something to the tune of "Whatever you want, grandpa."

Juliet bit back her amusement and raised her eyebrows at Carlton as he slid into the chair that Oily had just vacated.

"What?" Carlton asked, noticing her expression.

"Your wife?" Juliet repeated.

He shrugged. "Truth hurts, I guess."

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**Reviews make my day if you feel so inclined, especially since I'm not sure how good of a job I'm doing at writing these characters. Thanks!:)**


	3. Chapter 3

"So," Juliet said, leaning back in her chair and eyeing Carlton. "Divorce."

"Yep," he said, looking down at his plate as he took a bite of his toast, berating himself for letting that part – and really only that part – of this situation bother him. "Because getting divorced one time just isn't enough."

"This situation is a world away from your situation with Victoria, Carlton," Juliet pointed out. "And what about Marlowe?"

"What about her?" Carlton repeated with a careless shrug. "We broke up a couple of months ago. She said that she had found someone else 'on the inside'. Some loser called 'Skull Crusher.'"

"Oh, Carlton," Juliet breathed, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as her eyes blew wide. "I'm so sorry!"

"It's alright," he said with another shrug.

They didn't say anything for a minute, and that's when Carlton heard Juliet sniffling across the table. He looked up to see her crying silently into her fruit salad.

Alarmed, Carlton questioned softly, "O'Hara? What's wrong?"

Just like she had yesterday, the blonde shook her head, unable to speak as the tears started coming faster and harder. His worry overwhelmed his emotional walls at that point – especially the ones that he had put in place where his pretty, younger partner was concerned – and he moved from his chair to kneeling in front of hers.

"Is this about what was bothering you yesterday?" he asked. "About whatever it is that Spencer did to you?"

Juliet nodded meekly before two strangled words forced their way out of her throat and gasped out, "He cheated."

Carlton's brow furrowed for the split second it took for him to understand what he was being told. He gripped his partner's forearms to get her attention, repeating in a low voice, "He cheated on you?"

Juliet nodded, the sobs starting up once more. People were starting to stare at him and his partner, but Carlton didn't notice as wave after fiery wave of fury hit him.

"Come on," he said, helping her onto her feet. "Let's get you back up to your room."

He wove an arm around her waist, guiding her towards the elevator, and she kept her face buried in his shoulder the whole way, sniffling at random as she reigned back in her emotions.

As the elevator doors closed behind them, they said at the same time, "Maybe this trip wasn't such a good idea."

They looked at one another, and Juliet smiled weakly before dropping her gaze down to her shoes, murmuring, "I just don't feel like it's worth being out in public right now… or even like I'm worth anything right now."

Concern creased the older detective's face, but his answer was cut off by the opening of the elevator doors. Walking back to O'Hara's room gave him time to consider how exactly he ought to respond to her statement. Upon reaching her room, Juliet walked inside and kicked her shoes off into opposite nether regions of the hotel room, and Carlton followed her, shutting the door behind them with a resolute click.

"O'Hara," he said softly, turning from facing the door to facing the broken, blue-eyed beauty that suddenly refused to look at him. He took a step closer to her, made his tone a little more demanding as he tried using her given name for the first time since they had met, "Juliet, look at me."

Her eyes snapped to his, registering surprise at his uncharacteristic familiarity. Though her eyes were no longer swimming with tears, they were still plenty vulnerable. Red streaks crisscrossed her face, and her cheeks still glistened with salty testaments to her pain.

"How many times have I told you that Spencer is an arrogant, good for nothing jerk?"

Juliet flinched and looked away from him, but didn't answer. He realized then that what he had just said had come out as an accusation against her, though that was hardly how he had meant it. So Carlton wasn't exactly good at this "helping people through their problems" thing. Juliet O'Hara – his partner, and now his wife, d*** it – had come to him for help, and he was going to help her or kill himself trying.

Carlton took a step closer to her, trying to make his tone more… tender as he asked, "What do you think I mean whenever I say that?"

She shrugged, but still refused to open her mouth.

"What I mean," he said, saying every word carefully and with purpose, "Is that you deserve better – way better – than Shawn Spencer."

Juliet flopped down listlessly onto the edge of her bed – the bed that they had both left only a little over an hour ago – and put her head in her hands.

"Juliet, look at me," Carlton requested again – this time in a much softer tone – crouching down in front of her, much as he had just done downstairs. He pried her arms away from her face, and then moved his gaze around with hers, locking eyes with her until she gave up trying to look at anything else but him and at least semi-willingly looked him in the eye. "_You_ are way better than a guy like Spencer could _ever _deserve, and I mean it."

She shook her head, wrapping her arms protectively around herself. She mumbled half-heartedly, "Do you know how long it had been since I'd had a date before I started going out with Shawn?" It felt like a rhetorical question, so Carlton didn't answer it. "Shawn was the first guy in forever who was actually interested in me."

"It's not that you're uninteresting," Carlton said carefully, moving to perch beside her on the edge of the bed. "It's that you're smart, and determined, and… well, you're very pretty. And all of that combined makes you very intimidating to a man."

"I'm not intimidating," Juliet muttered, her tone full of self-loathing. "I'm just not worth it."

Something in Carlton snapped, and he surged to his feet, saying sharply, "Juliet Lynn – stop it! To some people in this world you are worth everything, and I'm not going to sit here and listen to you say anything different, just because of someone as stupid as Shawn Spencer!"

"'Worth everything' to people like who, Carlton?" Juliet asked tiredly, seeming not the least bit unsettled by his outburst – until he answered her question with three simple words, the tenderness that he had been trying to achieve all morning dumped into them in one fell swoop.

"People like me."

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**Reviews make my day if you feel so inclined, especially since I'm not sure how good of a job I'm doing at writing these characters. Thanks!:)**


	4. Chapter 4

Juliet's eyes widened, and for a second, Carlton thought that he had just made a huge mistake – that she was going to run from him now and get herself lost and killed in the crazy city that was Las Vegas. Instead, she just sat there, mute and trembling and looking at him with trepidation in her eyes.

"Listen to me, O'Hara," Carlton said urgently, stumbling over his words as he tried to explain the idea that had hit him while coming down to breakfast earlier. "In the state of California, it takes a legal minimum of six months for a divorce to be finalized, regardless of how long the couple in question has been married."

Juliet nodded dumbly. They both knew that she already knew this, but she obviously didn't see where he was going with it.

"What if…" Carlton took a deep breath, deciding to take the plunge. After all, after their past twenty-four hours, it wasn't like this situation could get much worse. Unless, of course, what he was about to say was just the thing to make it worse… "What if, for those six months, we actually tried it; actually lived as man and wife?"

Juliet shook her head, finding her voice again as she said, "No, we can't."

"Why not?"

"Because of our jobs? You do remember that I got the position I now have because of your infraction of the fraternization rules, right?"

"Then I'll quit my job," Carlton said instantly, feeling entirely reckless all of a sudden, and entirely committed to this idea of finally claiming Juliet as his own.

"Carlton, we both know you can't do that," Juliet said, rolling her eyes. "You wouldn't be able to live without your work at the police department. If either of us quit for this thing, it's going to be me. I probably should anyway, since I'm not sure I'll be able to stand ever seeing Shawn's face again."

Carlton chose not to reveal to her exactly what he was planning on doing to Spencer's face the next time he saw it. Instead he asked, hoping against the hope that he knew he wasn't doing a very good job of hiding, "Does that mean that you're willing to make this work?"

"It means," Juliet said carefully. "That I am willing to try it – to see where it goes, if anywhere – and only while the divorce is being processed."

"Deal," Carlton said, forgetting about trying to hide his excitement.

"But don't read too much into it, Carlton," Juliet warned. "You are my partner and my best friend, but that is all that we have ever been; that might be all that we're supposed to be... even if you apparently have been hiding some sort of…" she blushed deeply, "Attraction for me."

He was in love with her, but he knew better than to correct her on her choice of wording.

She sighed before further explaining, "The only reason that I'm agreeing to even try it is because of my mother. After all of her problems with men, she made me promise when I was fifteen that I wouldn't follow in her footsteps. She made me swear that I would wait, and find one guy – one good guy who was willing to love me for a lifetime – and marry him. That way I wouldn't have to deal with any messy relationships, or any divorces; just one marriage, that of me and my one true love." She smiled her expression full of self-depreciation and discouragement. "I sure did a good job of living up to my promise, huh?"

Carlton wanted to say it, he really did, but he didn't know if it would be too forward of him or not. His partner was obviously still nursing a raw wound over how her relationship with Shawn had ended, but he said it anyway.

He laid a hand on her knee, promising, "I'll be more than willing to help you keep it from now on, if you'll let me, O'Hara."

She brushed his hand off of her leg, muttering, "How do we even know that's still my name?"

"What?" Carlton asked, startled by the sudden change in topic.

"How do we know that my name is still 'O'Hara'? What if I changed my surname last night?"

Carlton swallowed, saying carefully as he dipped his hand into his inside suit pocket, "Actually, I found this folded up in my pants pocket this morning."

He unfolded the crisp document, smoothed out the creases, and laid it in Juliet's lap, watching her expression carefully. He saw the instant that she caught the line in question, when she saw that her name was there in black and white as irrefutable proof of what they had done last night.

_Juliet Lynn Lassiter._

"Juliet… Lassiter," the blonde muttered under her breath, first just once, then a few more times.

Carlton just sat there, unsure of what to do. Was she in shock or was she just trying to familiarize herself with the sound of her married name on her own tongue?

"Juliet?" he asked finally.

It seemed that calling her "O'Hara" was no longer an option.

Her blue eyes snapped up to his, crystal clear and determined. Whatever she wanted, she suddenly knew exactly what it was. "You want to try and make this as realistic a relationship as possible, right?"

Carlton nodded his head slowly, cautious of the nearly reckless look in her eyes.

"Then let's do that," she said with a sharp nod of her head, asking, "We just got married, so apparently this would be our honeymoon. What does going on a honeymoon constitute for you?"

Heat flared uncharacteristically up into the older man's neck, face, and ears as he stammered, "Well, I get the feeling that – that men – they tend to look at it a little – a little differently then – then, you know, um… then a woman would?"

"Oh really?" Juliet asked, raising her eyebrows while her lips twitched in amusement.

It took Carlton a second to realize that she was teasing him, being downright flirtatious. Then she was kneeling on the floor at his feet, pulling off his shoes. "What are you doing?" he asked, looking down at her in surprise.

"I am not a dunce, Carlton," she said, looking up at him as she threw first one of his shoes behind her and then the other. She stood up and leaned over him, sliding his suit jacket off of him as she said, "Nor am I an innocent little girl." She threw the jacket somewhere too, and he swallowed as she straddled his lap and began to work on getting his tie off of him as she added, "I think that we established that last night."

"I don't remember," Carlton confessed haltingly.

"Me neither," Juliet said with a grin, launching the tie back over her shoulder as she began to fiddle with the top button of his dress shirt. "So, I think it's only fair that we start this marriage out right… while we're sober enough to remember it."

Carlton knew that it was too soon – way too soon – after breaking up with Shawn for her to be doing something like this. She had to be simply using him as a rebound. She had to… and yet he didn't care. He smiled as they shared their first kiss – to their memories, anyway – and leaned leisurely back onto the bed, taking her with him.

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**Reviews make my day if you feel so inclined, especially since I'm not sure how good of a job I'm doing at writing these characters. Thanks!:)**


	5. Chapter 5

"Lassiter," Carlton said with a smile, holding out his hand for Juliet as she slid out of their rented car later that evening after they had eaten supper at a restaurant near the hotel and were now once again parked in front of the hotel.

"Why, thank you," Juliet said, accepting his assistance with a gracious smile.

He shut the door and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they headed inside the hotel lobby. Juliet knew that this wasn't a good idea. Getting this close to another guy, starting another relationship the freaking _same night _as she had broken up with Shawn just wasn't a plan, but right now she was enjoying the romantic attention, the downright _sweetness _that she was getting from Carlton, her partner of all people. As a matter of fact, she was enjoying it so much that she might just do something to maximize the amount of it that she got on this trip, Juliet decided, smiling a little as she burrowed a little closer to Carlton as they went into the hotel.

"Hey, Carlton?" she said, sliding out of his embrace as they stepped into the lobby. "There's something that I need to do; I'll come to your room in a few minutes, okay?"

He nodded, leaning forward to kiss her on the forehead before turning and making his way into the elevator. Less than ten minutes later, Juliet stood in the doorway of his hotel room, flinging the door open before barging right in with her suitcase in hand. She had already decided that she must still have the alcohol in her system since she was doing this, but like she had already thought numerous times during the course of this day, she really couldn't care.

"What are you doing?" Carlton asked slowly, looking away from the _Cops _re-run that he had been watching on television to stare at her instead.

"Isn't it obvious?" she asked, closing the hotel room door. "We are married, and this is supposed to count as our honeymoon, right? So why would I be staying in a different hotel room other than my husband's?"

Yes, this settled it; she was definitely still addled by the alcohol.

"O'Hara…" Carlton drawled slowly, obviously trying to put what was best for her above what he clearly wanted this major screw up to become.

How the h*** had she missed his feelings for her all this time?

"Don't call me that, not while it's not my name," Juliet demanded.

A second later the rogue though slipped into her mind – how had she missed her own blooming feelings for him? Apparently it took waking up hungover in Vegas to open her minds up to the possibilities – and maybe even her subconscious desires of a relationship with her partner.

_Alcohol, alcohol, alcohol_, her mind sang out. _This is all the alcohol's fault! _This was all going to go away and get back to normal once they got back to Santa Barbara – including her emotions… but for now, she wanted to enjoy it, no matter how potentially harmful that might be to both her and Carlton in the future.

"Okay," Carlton said slowly. "Then what do you want me to call you?"

"I think I made that decision last night when I signed that marriage certificate," she said, crawling onto the bed and snuggling up to him.

"You didn't object when I called you 'Lassiter' earlier; is that what you want me to keep doing?"

"No," Juliet finally decided. "But I think I could certainly handle being 'Mrs. Lassiter.'"

"Did you go get drunk again after we came into the hotel?" Carlton asked, looking down at her in concern.

He tilted her face up so that he could look in her eyes and register their clarity as she answered. "No, I've just been thinking."

"About what?" he asked, letting go of her chin, but not before she noticed that he had started to lean closer, wanting to kiss her.

"About what I want in a man."

"And what is that?" he asked, knowing that she wanted him to inquire.

"Honesty, bravery, intelligence… maturity. And a romantic side wouldn't be too bad either."

It was funny how after today she was beginning to be able to actually _feel _when he smiled.

"Well… I think that I know a guy who fits about four out of those five," he said.

She sat up, twisting around to look him in the eye as she asked, "What one doesn't he meet?"

"He's not very romantic," Carlton confessed.

Juliet sighed and relaxed back against his shoulder, informing him, "He can be when he wants to be."

"Really?" Carlton asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

"Yes, really… although, honestly," she took a deep breath and sighed, "my measuring stick for what constitutes a good guy is apparently not a good one to follow."

He pulled her a little closer, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and rubbing his hand up and down her arm soothingly. "Everyone has lapses in judgment, you know, even me; you when you dated Shawn; me when I was with Marlowe."

"Thanks," Juliet chuckled. "It's great to know that even the high and holy Carlton Lassiter can mess up a relationship."

"That's not what I meant. I was simply giving an example of another human being who is in fact _known_ for screwing up when it comes to women."

"Someone like Gus?" Juliet guessed with a small laugh, giving Carlton a way out of his rare moment of humility.

"I am not like Guster!... but… yes."

Juliet laughed. "You know what, Carlton?"

"Hm…?"

"I think that I might love you."

Carlton froze. The silence lasted so long that Juliet began to wonder if her new husband was going to answer.

Finally he took a deep breath, disentangling himself from holding her. Juliet watched him carefully, moving to sit with her legs underneath her as Carlton climbed from the bed and began to pace.

"Carlton?" she asked carefully.

He stopped, turning on his heel to look at her sharply. "Do not do this to me, O'Hara."

"Do what?" Juliet asked.

He took another deep breath, as if he was trying to come to a decision before he said, "Juliet, I have laid myself bare for you on this trip. My feelings for you are something that I have been dealing with practically since the day you walked into the department. At the time, I ignored it as just noticing that you had the same coloring as Lucinda Barry – my partner before you – but then, I don't know… I began to notice the good things about you as the person that you are without the connection to anyone else, and while I had always thought that you were physically pretty, you then became beautiful – inside and out. So, if you don't absolutely, positively know without a doubt that you return those feelings for me then do not make this into a game on your part, because it isn't anything of the sort on mine."

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**Reviews make my day if you feel so inclined, especially since I'm not sure how good of a job I'm doing at writing these characters. Thanks!:)**


	6. Chapter 6

"Oh, Carlton…" Juliet breathed. "No! I know that! I would never toy with you like that – or in any way, for that matter. I have too much respect for you to do that."

"Respect," Carlton repeated hollowly, ducking his head and kicking the carpet – but not before she saw the pain in his eyes.

"That's not what I meant!" Juliet protested, scrambling off of the bed and catching hold of his hands so that he would look at her. "I do respect you – probably more than any other person on this planet – and you are my best friend, the best partner I could have ever wished for, and a wonderful human being – at least when you want to be, but that's not my point…" she said, shaking off her side thought. "My point is," she continued. "That is all we have ever been. The fact that we could be starting to become something more… it scares me. I'm willing to try it – I've told you that – but, Carlton, I need you to be patient with me while I get this figured out in my own head, okay?"

"Okay," he agreed without hesitation, and for that Juliet was grateful.

"Carlton, I'm scared," she whispered again. "What are people going to say when we get back to Santa Barbara? The chief? Shawn?"

He pulled her into his arms, and she went willingly, savoring the familiarity of the scent that was uniquely his as she buried her face in his chest, suddenly fighting tears again. Gosh, she was being so bipolar today!

"Who cares what they say?" Carlton asked, tucking her head underneath his chin. "Let them talk – it's our lives, and therefore none of their business. As for the chief: she can't say anything that actually matters as long as one of us quits before we tell her that we got married. I'm tempted to put a bullet between Spencer's eyes before he can even open his mouth Monday morning once we're back at the station."

"Promise me you won't," she requested in all seriousness, moving so that she was looking him in the eyes. He just rolled his eyes, so she hardened her tone, repeating each world slowly and deliberately, "Promise me that you won't hurt Shawn, Carlton."

"Why? Because you still love him despite what he did to you?"

"No! Because I don't want my husband to get put behind bars for cold-blooded murder; I don't care what person it is!"

"It would probably count as premeditated too…" Carlton murmured.

Juliet glared at him, not amused, but then lightened up, realizing what she had just verbally referred to him as – her husband. "I don't want you getting in there and reconnecting with Marlowe," she joked. "That would leave us with a very horrible marriage, in my opinion."

Carlton cocked his head to the side, smirking at her as he said, "I thought you said that you don't love me?"

"I never once said I don't love you, Carlton," she objected with a small shake of her head. "I just meant that I don't know that I love you how a woman ought to love her husband."

Carlton arched his eyebrows in amusement, his gaze darting to the bed behind them and back to her face. "Really? Because that's not the impression that I've gotten this weekend."

"You know what I mean!" Juliet objected, feeling heat creep up into her cheeks as she crossed her arms over her chest. This sort of banter with Shawn was one thing – something that he had done even before they were dating, since he was so open, extraverted, and immature – but she was going to have to get used to it coming from Carlton. "I meant _emotionally_!"

"Yeah," Carlton chuckled. "Because I'm so good at dealing with emotions."

"You've done okay with handling mine this weekend," Juliet informed him.

"By getting you drunk or kissing you into silence? Those are great ways to handle emotions," he said, rolling his eyes again.

"They're more normal ways than taking it out on a bunch of figurines at the shooting range."

"There were extenuating circumstances to that one," Carlton informed her. "And besides, that's no worse than disassembling and reassembling your firearm multiple times."

Juliet rolled her eyes, demanding, "Hush."

"Make me," Carlton replied with a grin.

Yeah, so maybe this sort of banter from him was going to take some getting used to – but that didn't mean that she couldn't already enjoy it…

She grinned before standing on her tiptoes to kiss him.

This sort if interaction between the two of them was definitely outside of what she had ever envisioned for them, but she did like it, and she got the feeling that she could, in fact, quite easily learn to… well, love it. As it was, she was quickly falling in love with the man himself, with the tender, at least semi-romantic, caring side of him that she had always had a feeling existed somewhere beneath the surface, as well as already having under her belt years of caring for the cop side of him.

And that was when it hit Juliet that maybe six months as this man's wife was actually going to be a nice thing… and that maybe, just maybe, the lifetime that he seemed to want them to spend together wouldn't be so awful either…

For the first time all day, she didn't even think to blame her thoughts on the ungodly amount of alcohol that the two of them had consumed the night before. She just let herself fall – into his arms, into his bed, and in love with him. She let herself love him – both physically and emotionally, without any reserve – and didn't try to put up any emotional walls when he showed how much he cared for her in return. It was terrifying, and life altering, and exhilarating, and beautiful, and wonderful all at the same time.

And she didn't want it to ever stop.

As a matter of fact, Juliet made her decision then – a real, conscious decision – that she wasn't going to let it stop. So what if they had run off to Vegas and gotten married under the influence in a ceremony that she was fairly certain she remembered as including an Elvis officiator? They were legally married, he loved her, and d***it, she loved him too now – yes, after today, after the conversation that they had just finished, she could freely admit it – and that really was all that mattered.

But this was only their honeymoon, not real life, and – truth be told – she didn't know if loving him would be enough.

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	7. Chapter 7

Juliet didn't remember ever being this sort of uneasy. Nobody had to tell her that she was a nervous wreck on the trip back to Santa Barbara Sunday evening; she knew it very well on her own. Carlton was – per his friend's request – sitting up beside the captain's chair, leaving Juliet alone in one of the back seats with way too much on her mind and way too much time to think about it all.

She really did have feelings for Carlton – long repressed since she had first heard about his relationship with his previous partner – but still there and now very out in the open. That didn't mean that those in her social circles or in their workplace were going to be exactly understanding of the situation, even though after she quit the department as soon as possible Monday morning, Carlton was going to be the one to have to bear the greatest brunt of workplace woes.

That did very little to soothe her own nerves, though. She still felt like puking when she thought of telling the chief what had happened, or Henry Spencer, or – God help them all – Shawn. Her gut instincts said that the psychic hadn't really believed that she would stay mad at him over what he'd done – after all, she'd always forgiven his stupidities before – and that he would expect them to fall back into their groove. Juliet had already decided, though, that even if her marriage to Carlton never survived, she and Shawn were done for good; she had taken to heart what Carlton had told her Saturday, and she wasn't going back to the psychic; she really did deserve a man, not the boy that was Shawn.

And so her thoughts went until they were finally back on the ground in Santa Barbara, getting in Lassiter's truck to head towards her place so that she could get some things together for the time that she was going to be living with Carlton.

Living with Carlton – the words took on a whole new dimension now that they were back here in their hometown. No more honeymoon haze for them; it was time for real life now, and that unnerved her.

"Are you okay, Juliet?" Carlton asked, more than likely already knowing the answer as he started the truck and pulled onto the road, steering with one hand and cradling her hand with the other.

"Are you?" she asked drily.

Carlton sighed as he flipped on the turn signal, checking his mirrors instead of making eye contact with her as he answered, "We both know we're both nervous about tomorrow, but, honestly, I'm better then I've been in awhile;" He squeezed her hand. "I'm finally with the woman that I love."

Juliet stifled a sigh, leaning her forehead over against the cool truck window and staring out at the passing street lights. "What about Shawn?"

Carlton drummed his fingers of the hand she wasn't holding against the steering wheel, thinking before he answered. "Juliet… I don't know whether or not Spencer told you this, but when the two of you started dating – or at least when I found out about it – I made him a promise – even hooked myself up to the lie detector to prove my point. I told him that if he didn't give you the respect you deserved, or if he hurt you – 'in any way' – I would shoot him. I meant it then, and I mean it all the more now."

"Well, you promised me earlier this weekend that you wouldn't," Juliet pointed out.

He huffed. "I know, and I wish I hadn't."

"But you did, and I will hold you to it."

"That's fine. But I do have one question about the letter of the law of that promise."

"What?" she asked warily.

"You just meant no physically hurting him, right? No literal laying a finger on him?"

"Yes… Don't do anything to hurt Shawn – physically and preferably even verbally, because I don't want what's only our business to be splattered across the department via an overly loud argument that you and him get into."

"Done," Carlton nodded. "But what if it's something not at all out of the ordinary that hurts him? Am I not supposed to do that either?"

"You don't have to go out of your way to be nice to him; that's not what I'm asking you to do. I'm just saying do not intentionally go out of your way _to_ harm him."

Carlton nodded again. "I can work with that."

Juliet looked at him warily, but he said nothing else on the subject, apparently considering the conversation closed.

An hour later, Carlton was unlocking the door to his house and holding it open for her, gesturing her inside. She obligingly entered, surprised at the pristine condition in which he apparently kept his house and only mildly disturbed by the fact that it looked like he had numerous evidence boards full of details on open and cold cases in every room.

"The bedroom's this way," Carlton spoke up, leading her down the hallway, his weekend bag slung over his shoulder, hers in one hand, wheeling the suitcase that she had just gotten from her house behind him with his other hand – his way of being a gentleman.

"Thanks," Juliet muttered when he propped her bag upright against a wall of the bedroom.

He smiled, and she knew that he was trying his best to make her feel at home here – or at the very least forget her nerves – when he asked, "Are you hungry? Thirsty? I can't promise much in the way of food since I haven't been to the store in a couple of weeks, but there's always beer and takeout."

"No," she answered in a low voice, waves of exhaustion suddenly hitting her as she almost swayed on her feet because of it. "I just want to go to sleep."

"Whoa," Carlton jumped towards her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as he guided her to sit down the bed. "Alright. I can agree to that. Here, let me help you."

He knelt down and slid her shoes off of her feet before pulling the covers on the bed back so that she could lie down. When she did so, her eyes were already fluttering closed as he carefully tucked the blankets in around her as if she were a small child, and kissed her on the forehead.

"Good night, Juliet."

"Good night, Carlton," she whispered, barely coherent as she gave in to the lure of sleep. "I love you."

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	8. Chapter 8

Juliet had never – not ever, ever, ever, in her life – been so nervous to walk into the Santa Barbara Police Department as she was the next morning. Neither she nor Carlton had said much since waking up; they weren't in the mood for conversation, considering that they knew what was coming.

Carlton leaned in and covertly asked as they stood beside his desk, "How do you want to do this?"

"I have to give the chief my resignation before anything else happens, or else it could have an effect on your job." He raised his eyebrows, just barely, at that – his way of reminding her that his job was going to be effected either way – and she protested with a hiss of "You know what I mean!"

"Do you want me to come with you?"

Juliet shook her head decidedly. "I'm sure Chief Vick will call you in when she's ready to talk to us both."

"Okay," Carlton answered, his mouth pinching with displeasure that she knew he wouldn't voice.

Somehow he understood that this was something that she had to do on her own, and so he let her head to Chief Vick's office without saying another word.

Juliet knocked on the doorframe outside the open door and waited until the chief looked up at her to step over the threshold.

"O'Hara?" Chief Vick asked, eyeing her worriedly. "You look pale; is something wrong?"

"Um," Juliet looked down at her hands as she slid the paper onto the chief's desk and stayed silent while the other woman picked it back up and scanned its contents.

"What's this?" Chief Vick asked, looking understandably surprised as she looked back up at Juliet.

Juliet's voice came out with relative firmness as she looked her boss in the eye and answered, "My resignation – effective immediately."

Chief Vick looked at her through narrowed eyes, trying to figure out what was going on inside her head for a second before she gestured to one of the chairs on the opposite side of her desk, ordering sharply, "Shut the door and sit."

Juliet did as she was told; ignoring the fact that Carlton tried to catch her eye when she shut the door.

"O'Hara," the chief said, folding her hands with her elbows propped on her desk, leaning forward as she asked, "What is going on?"

"Do you accept my resignation?"

"What?"

"I'm not going to tell you until you do," Juliet insisted.

Chief Vick sighed in frustration, fingering the piece of paper as she decided, "Fine; you can always be reinstated later."

Juliet tried to keep the grief out of her voice as she said, "No, chief, I won't be."

"Well, why not, O'Hara?!"

"Because my name isn't O'Hara anymore; I got married over the weekend."

"You did what?!"

Before Juliet could explain further, someone knocked on the door to the chief's office and Henry Spencer poked his head in, the rest of his body following shortly.

"What is it, Henry?" Chief Vick asked.

"Sorry, chief," Henry apologized. "I just need a word with Juliet about some things that happened last weekend."

"You didn't marry her, did you?" Chief Vick snapped.

Confusion scrawled across Henry's features as he answered absently, "What? No, no, no. Listen, Juliet, Shawn came over to my house Saturday morning once you he realized that you weren't at your place or answering your phone and he ended up spilling the whole story and spending the rest of the weekend at my place. He's been miserable and drinking over the whole time; the kid really does feel awful about what happened Friday evening."

Juliet straightened up, answering Henry coolly, "If Shawn really does feel that badly about it, then I expect him to come tell me so himself."

That had been just the wrong thing to say. The next thing Juliet knew, someone had hollered "Jules!" out across the station, before they came into the chief's office and hauled her to her feet, and suddenly this person was kissing her. She barely registered an animalistic growl tear across the room from outside the office. She knew the owner of the growl was now coming towards the office, and in the moment before Carlton stormed into the room, Juliet found herself slapping Shawn Spencer across the face as hard as she could. Her coherency came fully back to her in time to see Carlton pick Shawn up off of his feet by his shirt collar and pin him against the wall.

"Detective Lassiter!" Chief Vick yelled, standing to her feet at the same time that Juliet called out her husband's name. "What is going on here?"

Breathing heavily, Carlton turned his head towards Juliet, asking with an eerie calm for someone who was holding another man in a death grip, "Did you give her your resignation?"

"Yes," Juliet said, taking a step towards him and Shawn.

"So you're no longer under the powers of the SBPD?"

Juliet looked to the chief, who nodded quickly and answered, still looking concerned for the safety of a shaken Shawn. "Right. Now, put the man _down_, Lassiter."

Juliet stepped up to her – former – partner and laid a hand on his arm, ordering gently, "Let him go, Carlton."

"But he-"

"He's done worse than kiss me, Carlton," Juliet reminded with a small smile. "I just didn't have time to explain to anyone what's happened. I'm fine. Please… just let him go before you get suspended or something. You two still have to work together."

Carlton fixed Shawn with one more murderous glare, grinding his teeth as he dropped the psychic heavily back onto his feet.

"What's your deal, man?" Shawn asked, glaring at Lassiter in return as he straightened his shirt. "I was just kissing my girlfriend; last time I checked, that wasn't illegal."

"Actually," Carlton said as the sadistic grin of a man who was about to inflict pain and enjoy doing it slid across his face. "You kissed my _wife_. And last time _I _checked, that was grounds for-"

"For nothing," Juliet said sharply, stepping between the two men and staring Carlton down while ignoring the many surprised exclamations that had resulted from Carlton's statement. "You promised, Carlton."

He gestured to Shawn starting, "Yeah, but-"

"No!" she interjected again. "Your sticking to that promise is the only way that I can be even reasonably okay with the idea of not being here every day to referee you two. Please, try to work with him… for me?"

Carlton sighed, rolling his eyes at some point over her head as he agreed, "Fine."

"Thank you," Juliet murmured squeezing his hand.

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	9. Chapter 9

"Would someone please explain what is going on here?!" Chief Vick asked temperamentally, drawing everyone's attention back to her.

Juliet sat meekly back down in the chair that she had vacated, and Shawn and Carlton both took a seat on either side of her. Henry leaned against the chief's desk, catching sight of Juliet's resignation before he looked at the three in the chairs.

He asked Juliet, "You're quitting the SBPD?" When she nodded, he asked, "Does this have anything to do with that other woman?"

"Dad!"

"Shut up, Shawn. Juliet, yes or no?"

"Both," Juliet answered. "Yes and no."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Chief Vick asked.

Juliet looked between the chief and Henry as she began to explain, knowing that it was her place to start this story off. "When I caught Shawn… with… you know…"

"Another woman," Henry supplied with grim displeasure, glaring at his son.

Juliet nodded, continuing, "I told him that we were through, and I drove away. I didn't know where to go, so I went to see Carlton."

The detective in question took up the story from there, saying, "When I saw how upset she was and how badly she needed a distraction, I thought 'what better place to forget your problems then Las Vegas?' and so I dragged her off on a weekend away." Knowing where this was headed, the chief threw her head back, groaning aloud, as Carlton continued the explanation, "Subsequently, we got drunk."

Juliet added, "Really drunk; like we're still not sure how everything that happened past midnight came together drunk."

"But either way," Carlton continued, "We woke up Saturday morning a married couple."

Chief Vick buried her head in her hands, asking the one word question, "Annulment?"

"Can't," Carlton answered bluntly.

Shawn asked innocently, "Why not?"

"Shut up, kid," Henry said sharply.

"Divorce?" the chief asked.

Juliet looked down at her hands as she answered, "I'm going to start looking into it."

In Las Vegas she had been so uncertain of whether or not she wanted to separate from Carlton at all, but this – quitting her job and facing so much in their real lives – had made the idea all the more appealing.

"It'll be six months before a separation could be finalized, regardless," Carlton pointed out, relaying the thought process that Juliet had talked through with him while still in Vegas. At the end of the spiel, he added, "Until then, the two of us have decided that we're actually going to give this marriage a real try; Juliet's moving into my house for the time being."

"What?" Shawn screeched, jumping out of his seat to glare at both Juliet and Carlton – although mostly the latter.

"Sit down, Shawn," Juliet ordered vehemently, her temper suddenly flaring.

"No!" he shouted, "Don't you get it? I love you, Jules! Are you really just going to throw that away on – on _Lassie_?!"

"Shawn," Juliet forced herself to calm down, knowing that she needed to set a final, good example for her husband and her ex-boyfriend before she left them without her supervision. She took a deep breath, saying wearily, "I honestly don't know that you understand what it is to love someone – really love them… or at least not me, anyway. Loving someone is being willing to let that person go when they need you to," That's when the thought struck her. "Like you did with Abigail."

"Abigail is history," Shawn snapped. "And what about Lassie; he cut his ex-wife loose, didn't he? Does that mean that he's still in love with her, because, apparently, that would really be horrible for you."

Juliet blinked, surprised by that particular route of backlash, but she instinctively motioned to Carlton – albeit subtly – to let her handle the onslaught.

"I think," she answered slowly, pondering every word, "That there was a time when, yes, Carlton loved Victoria – and, in some ways, maybe he still does. But love can change, Shawn, and so can people." She let a hint of her aggravation crawl back into her voice as she further explained, "You seem to be exempt from that rule, however, because here's what I thought. I thought that given some time – some room to grow, and to work with the cops at a job that was at least semi-real – you would grow up and become the real man that I think you have – that I at least _thought_ you had – the potential to be, but that never happened. What you did Friday just proves the point that it never will." Her voice lost its passionate tone and turned downright tired as she confessed, "I'm just tired of waiting for you to grow up, Shawn. I don't know how or why you were able to be a man – a good, mature man – in your relationship with Abigail, but when she left and we got together, that didn't happen with me. You became this-this _child _all over again, but I forced myself not to notice because I wanted the man that had been with Abigail to be the man that was with me… but he wasn't the same guy. He was just a silly little kid… and, whether or not he knew it, he hurt me in a lot of little ways. When I got hurt that big way Friday, I was just done," she shrugged, saying almost apologetically. "We're done, Shawn."

"You don't mean that," Shawn practically whimpered, looking so crushed that Juliet almost recanted of her statement, no matter how much she _had_ meant it.

Despite all of the uncertainties that had been started or dredged up since the last time she had been in the police department, she did know that one thing. No matter where her relationship went with Carlton Lassiter, she was done settling for less then what she deserved at the hands of Shawn Spencer.

"Yes, I do," she said softly, but not without the firmness that she knew he would make necessary. "I'm sorry, Shawn," she stood up suddenly, weaving her way towards the door of the chief's office. "But I don't think that I'm going to be coming back into this building for awhile, okay?"

Shawn took a step towards her, pain and even confusion still scrawled plainly across his face, but his father grabbed his forearm, speaking for him when he said, "That's understandable."

"Well," Chief Vick said, standing as she blearily came back to herself. "We'll certainly miss you around here, O'Hara."

"It's, um," Juliet looked down again, twisting her hands as she said, "It's Juliet Lassiter now."

"Of course," the chief said with a nod and a tight smile.

"Hey," As Juliet took the last step to the doorway of her former boss's office; Carlton jumped up and took a couple wide steps to grab her wrist before she stepped out. He kissed her right there in front of all of his present colleagues and her former ones, saying casually, "Bye. I'll see you when I get back home?"

Juliet nodded – flustered and blushing but not horribly displeased at the PDA – before she glimpsed Shawn's expression out of the corner of her eye. What had a moment ago been hurt in his eyes had turned to agony when he realized she wasn't particularly bothered by Carlton's affection.

That's when hers and Carlton's conversation from the night before came back to her. _"But what if it's something not at all out of the ordinary that hurts him?"_

Oddly enough, she found that she didn't really care – about any angle of what had just happened – as much as she thought she probably should have.

Juliet turned on her heel and calmly walked out of the police department, knowing that she had just closed one chapter of her life and started another. The problem was that she didn't know what on earth this new chapter held, let alone where it would lead.

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	10. Chapter 10

Carlton grinned excitedly to himself as he stepped up to his front door later that evening, wondering what was waiting for him on the inside of the house.

He couldn't help himself as he opened the door, calling out, "Honey, I'm home!"

"Hi," Juliet said cheerfully, stepping into the front room while wiping her hand on a dishtowel that she had slung across her shoulder.

Determined to make this feel like some version of normal, Carlton went to her and dipped his head down to place a quick kiss on her lips. Not that he didn't want more then that… She had changed out of her pants suit at some point once leaving the department and was now wearing an actual long, flowing floral skirt to go with her pink top. What were those things called? Peasant skirts? Something like that… Names aside, the point was that no matter how much he never would've envisioned her wearing the ensemble, she looked absolutely ravishing in it. The fact that she was wearing his pistol-print cooking apron didn't hurt matters either.

"What smells so great, beautiful?" he asked, glancing around the room.

Juliet blushed up at him, saying, "I made a pot roast."

He looked down at her with raised eyebrows. "I could get used to this."

"You might not want to," Juliet said, turning to go back into the kitchen while he trailed after her. "I decided to play housewife a little today until I get things figured out with what to do now that I don't work for the department."

"I can see that," Carlton said vaguely, glancing around the kitchen and noticing the same things that he had in the living room. Namely, she had put some décor up around the house and most of his evidence boards were nowhere to be found. "Hey, honey, where is all of my case stuff?"

"Oh," Juliet turned from the stove to look at him, saying, "I put everything but the ones documenting your current cases in the spare bedroom; I hope you don't mind; I thought it might be an okay compromise. I figured this way it would look more homey and inviting for if and when we have visitors come over. Besides, this way the cases that you see all the time are the ones that you need to be concentrating on anyway. Oh! Speaking of which," Juliet pointed with the spoon that she held to a case file whose contents lay spread across the kitchen table amidst cutting boards and spices. "I think I may have cracked one for you."

"Which one?" Carlton asked, his eyebrows drawing together as he approached the table and scanned the copies that he had of the official documents that remained at the department.

"The Harrison Jerome case."

"That's a cold case from when you were still in Florida," Carlton said in confusion.

"Yeah," Juliet nodded, "But I guess a fresh pair of eyes might be just what it needed. It caught my eye because I thought I remembered hearing something about it back in Miami at the time it had happened, so I looked it over a few times. I didn't see where you guys had checked into his girlfriend."

"Yes, we did," Carlton said, thinking back and unearthing his memories of the case. "The woman had an airtight alibi. She was in Hawaii for her sister's wedding – and then came back to Santa Barbara to hear that her boyfriend had been killed."

"No," Juliet contradicted, her eyes bright as she came to stand beside him and held up a sheet of paper that he knew hadn't come from his file. "Not that girlfriend; the other one."

"'Other one'?"

"His Puerto Rican one night stand."

"What?" Carlton said sharply, snapping up the piece of paper. "How did we miss that there was a whole other woman?"

"Probably incompetent police work on the side of the then-recently promoted head detective," Juliet teased. He glared at her, but she just continued her explanation. "So, Harrison and his girlfriend lived in Santa Barbara, and were pretty much your normal suburbanites, but Harrison's brother was absolutely _loaded_."

"He'd sold some information on the higher-ups in his company to the right people," Carlton recalled.

"And used some of that money to buy a condo in Miami and a private plane that he stored with the condo," Juliet added. "Before taking pity on his little brother and sharing in the bounty. Now here's what I think happened: Harrison goes for a ride in his brother's plane; lands in Puerto Rico where he meets his one-tome mistress; they have their night together, and then Harrison goes home. Three years later, Harrison doesn't know that he has a son, and the kid's mother, who was already poor, has become pathetically destitute. Then she remembers that her son's father seemed to have some money, so she calls him up and begs him for help. He agrees to meet her, but only on his home turf, which is how the case is in your jurisdiction, but it's also why we could never find the culprit. So, anyway, the mistress comes to Santa Barbara, but she brings pictures of her son, hoping the thought of having a son will loosen Harrison's pocket strings, but all it does is make him panic."

She pointed to copies of the couple of Polaroid photos on the table, and Carlton shook his head, muttering, "We never could connect those pictures to anything."

"That's why you need me," Juliet said perkily.

"So, how exactly did this go down, if you've figured everything out?"

"He meets her late at night in the restaurant that he manages once everyone else has gone home, and freaks out when she explains that the boy in the photos is Harrison's son. The two of them fight, it gets physical. There in the back of the restaurant, which means plenty of possible weapons, and, in a panic, Ms. Puerto Rico grabs a knife and – bam – its lights out for Harrison Jerome."

"That's a nice story, Juliet, but how exactly are we supposed to check it out?" Carlton asked with a sigh.

"I may or may not have made a call or two to my old coworkers in Miami and asked them to check out some things on their end…"

Carlton threw his head back and groaned his young wife's name.

"What? It's not like I report to the SBPD anymore!"

Carlton shook his head, looking around him with a disbelieving smile on his face. "This is what you call playing housewife? It sounds to me like you've been playing detective."

"When I left the department, I went to the store, bought food, some curtains and a couple of table runners. I came home, put the pot roast in the slow-cooker, hung up the curtains, and laid out the table runners, then started shifting your boards around, which is when I came upon this case. So I guess I've done both today."

Carlton probably should have been upset, but he found that for once in his life, he couldn't be; not with Juliet, and not when she was obviously just trying to find a new place for herself because of having to quit the department.

Instead, he kissed her again, going to the cabinets to retrieve a couple of plates, saying, "Let's see if your cooking is as good as your detective work."

* * *

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	11. Chapter 11

Juliet met Carlton at the door the next night, practically bouncing on her toes, even though he had come home late despite his best efforts. At first, she didn't even notice his own peevishness, she was so happy.

"I was right!" she said, nearly before he had walked in the door.

"About what?" he asked, throwing himself down on the couch and leaning down to unlace his shoes.

"The Jerome case," she answered, settling down on the couch beside him. "My old partner called me a few hours ago and said that he had called the Puerto Rican authorities and fed them my theory, and then they had found Harrison's mistress and got her to confess to killing him."

"Good job, sweetheart," Carlton said, giving her a tired smile. "I'm really impressed."

"Thanks!" Her smile slipped, turning into a small frown as she noticed his expression, "Are you okay, Carlton?"

He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and sighed. "The chief brought Spencer in on a case of mine today."

"I'm sorry," Juliet said softly.

Carlton shrugged. "He sulked and ignored me, and made jabs that were meaner than usual. Guster swears he's handling this all very well, though."

He saw Juliet cringe when she considered what Spencer's "handling it well" looked like.

"At least you don't have to work the case totally alone now," she offered timidly.

His eyes fluttered as he drawled out, "No…"

"But what?"

He ran a hand over his hair, not wanting to tell her, no matter how inevitable they both knew it was.

"Did Chief Vick assign you a new partner already?" Juliet asked.

His wife always had been a little smarter than he usually gave her credit for. "Apparently, McNab had wanted a promotion for a while, and the chief decided it was finally his turn."

"Well, McNab isn't so bad, is he?" Juliet asked, leaning her shoulder onto his.

"No, but it's just so strange, working with him like that – as my partner."

"Is he a bad detective?" she inquired patiently.

"No."

"Then what's wrong with the situation, Carlton?"

Carlton gave into the desire to whine as he admitted, "He's just not… you."

He heard her stifle a laugh as she leaned her head over on his shoulder and pointed out, "But you have me now more then you ever did last week when we were partners."

"Was that really just last week?" he asked incredulously.

She nodded against his shoulder. "So, see, we're still trying to figure this out, right? We don't know yet what's going to work for us – or even if this is going to work out at all. Right now we just have to take it as it comes, roll with the punches, and find a way to get back on out feet – back to normal somehow."

"Yeah," Carlton sighed, kissing her hair, more depressed then ever when he thought of another question that needed to be asked. Oh well; no time like the present. "In the name of getting back to normal – have you looked into the divorce thing?"

It had been left entirely unsaid that he was at least partially against their getting a divorce, although he got the feeling that Juliet had no idea how much he downright abhorred the idea. He wanted to fight for his marriage with everything in him, but – just like he had learned to do with Victoria – he would let her go because that was what she wanted.

Still leaning against him, Juliet paused for a second before she said lightly – a little too lightly – "I think I'm going to wait a couple of months; let us get settled in together and experiment our relationship a bit before we automatically go throwing it out the window."

"Are you sure?" Carlton asked with a little surprise, knowing that, should she still choose to leave him in the end, what she was proposing would make going back to being a single man – let alone just being without her – all the more difficult for him.

"I'm sure. I don't want to pile more stress onto your plate right now." She nodded, grinning at him with that _look_ that she hadn't employed since they'd left Vegas and stood up, tugging on his hand with a playful glance towards the hallway. "As a matter of fact, I'm so sure, that I think we might just need to do something to get us both a little unstressed."

He blinked in surprise at the rapid turn the conversation had taken, but willingly followed her anyway, muttering, "I will never understand women."

"Well, you sure don't seem to mind us," his wife teased as she opened the bedroom door.

"No," Carlton corrected. "I just don't mind _you_."

Juliet simply grinned, rising up on her tiptoes to kiss him as he reached behind him and shut the bedroom door.

* * *

After seven more weeks of living with Juliet as his wife, Carlton began to notice that things were beginning to get settled in his lives and in the lives of those most affected by his marriage. He began to get used to having McNab riding shotgun, and it was easy for him to learn to appreciate the other man's quiet personality. Chief Vick stopped glaring at him _every time _their eyes metbecause he was the reason that Juliet had quit the SBPD, and went back to glaring at him only during times in which she wanted to assert herself as being an angry boss because of his methods of police work; same old, same old there. Henry stopped being as utterly silent around his former fishing buddy as he had been when Carlton and Juliet had first revealed their marriage and mostly went back to being his peevish, ex-cop self with Lassiter, although Carlton could still appreciate the pain it had to cause the father to see his son so hurt – which Shawn undoubtedly was. Guster, like Henry, had remained perched awkwardly on the fence for a while, hating to see Spencer in pain, but understanding why Juliet and Carlton were okay with inflicting it, and little by little, the pharmaceutical salesman went back to his easy acquaintance with Lassiter-the-cop, leaving Lassiter-the-guy-who-I-blame-for-my-best-friend's-agony in the dust, just like the rest of the SBPD. Juliet got a part-time job at a gun shop – Carlton had been so jealous – and even Shawn seemed to come to terms with it all.

Life was good – smooth sailing, even – but he couldn't quite forget that the two month mark that Juliet had set was still looming ever closer.

* * *

**Reviews make my day if you feel so inclined, especially since I'm not sure how good of a job I'm doing at writing these characters. Thanks!:)**


	12. Chapter 12

She loved him. Suddenly, frankly and with the brutal honestly that she hadn't before allowed herself, Juliet finally admitted this. While sitting alone in the semi-darkness at her former desk at the police station, with her hand clenched around the package in her lap, she admitted it. She loved Detective Carlton Lassiter. She wanted to spend forever with her husband. Heck, even the name Mrs. Juliet Lassiter had long grown on her.

But the question that she now had to face was a wholly unexpected one. Would _he _still want _her _after she told him about this?

"O'Hara?"

Juliet jumped up out of her chair, whirling towards the voice that she hadn't heard in one day shy of two months.

"Sorry to scare you," Chief Vick said apologetically, stepping out of the darkness of her office and closing the door for the night. "Does Detective Lassiter know you're here?"

Juliet shook her head. She hadn't actually meant to come here when she'd gotten in her car and started driving around town, but now that she was here, she had decided to just wait for Carlton to get ready to come home with her after another one of his unusually long work days.

"Well, he's down in records; he just wanted to grab a case file before he left for the day," the chief looked at her with as knowing smile as she added, "He said somebody seemed to be making quick work of the ones he already had at his house."

Juliet smiled weakly and looked at her shoes, deciding not to remind the chief that she no longer went by her maiden name, instead explaining the chief's implication with an "I get bored being by myself at the house sometimes."

Chief Vick nodded approvingly. "Well, it's nice to know that you're still doing good work for the SBPD."

"Thanks… I guess," Juliet murmured.

The chief cocked her head to the side, stepping closer. "Are you okay?" she asked. "You look a little worried about something."

"No, I'm fine," Juliet assured her hurriedly. "I've just had a touch of the flu these past couple of weeks."

"Okay," Taking another step closer to the former detective, Chief Vick glanced at the items that Juliet held in her hands, asking shrewdly, "What are those?"

"Nothing," Juliet said too quickly, stuffing the incriminating items into her purse and starting towards the exit, calling over her shoulder, "I've got to go. It was nice talking to you!"

Juliet could feel her former boss's eyes drilling into the back of her head. She muttered curses into the air and picked up her pace, knowing that the chief had just figured it all out.

* * *

"Carlton!"

The anxious tone of the chief's voice caught him off guard and he almost dropped the file that he had grabbed. "Over here," he called out. She appeared at the end of the aisle, eyes swimming with worry. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure that it's anything that you don't already know, but O'Hara-"

"-Lassiter.-"

"-_Mrs. Lassiter _was just here-"

"Now? This late?"

"Carlton!"

"What?"

"Would you listen? I think something's wrong; she seemed upset – scared of something."

Carlton narrowed his eyes. After years of working with Karen Vick, the two knew each other better than either chose to let on, and he saw something in her eyes. By themselves in the record room, he was free to call her on it.

"What aren't you telling me?"

Karen sighed. "When you say that you got drunk in Vegas, was it so drunk that you didn't think to use protection at the beginning of your 'honeymoon'? Because I could've sworn that she had a pregnancy test with her."

Carlton's eyes blew wide as he began to connect the dots. It was that thought process that had made Juliet hesitate when he had first questioned her about her looking into a divorce. It was that thought process that had made her come to the decision to wait a couple of months before filing a divorce. She knew they hadn't had protection, and had wanted to make sure nothing had become of it before they made the decision to separate.

He was already running towards the SBPD exit as the signs began to add up. Juliet wasn't suffering from a stomach bug like she had claimed; she was pregnant with his child! He grinned broadly, jumped into his truck, and started it, flipping on the blues that he kept in his truck just to get him back to his wife a little quicker.

* * *

Juliet was curled up on the couch, staring blindly at the television, trying to forget how upset she was when she heard a vehicle peel into the driveway, lights and sirens blaring. As she moved to jump up from the couch and investigate, her first sickening thought was that it was McNab coming to tell her that something mortal had happened to her husband and landed him in the hospital or worse. Her worries were quickly put to rest, though, when within the next instant Carlton was somehow in the house with her and sweeping her into the circle of his arms.

"Sweetheart, is there something that I should know?" he asked with the broadest grin that she had ever seen him wear.

"Vick," Juliet accused flatly, fighting tears.

"Yeah, so?" Carlton said eagerly. "Is she right?"

"About what?" Juliet muttered, burying her face in his chest.

"She came up with this theory," Carlton said slowly, speaking as gently now as he ever had to her in Vegas when he realized that she was in fact upset at the moment. "That you're expecting." Juliet's breath froze in her throat as her husband repeated his earlier question. "Is she right?"

"Do you hate me now?" Juliet asked tearfully, chancing a glance up into his face.

"No; I'm thrilled!"

"You are?" she asked, relief and confusion both weaving their way into her tone.

"Yes," he smiled eagerly, eyes sparkling as he tightened his grip on her waist. "This was one of the things that Victoria never got about me either. Big bad detective or not, I always wanted kids, but she didn't listen when I told her so, and that hurt us both. I don't want to hurt you, Juliet," he said, leaning until his forehead was touching hers. "Please say that you believe me."

A smile bloomed slowly across her face as she realized just what his little speech meant for her child… and her marriage, for that matter. "I believe you," she said sincerely, moving to wrap her arms around his neck as she closed the last bit of distance between them and kissed her husband.

* * *

**Reviews make my day if you feel so inclined, especially since I'm not sure how good of a job I'm doing at writing these characters. Thanks!:)**


	13. Chapter 13

_Four months later_

"What in the world?" Carlton muttered, staring at the note on his desk as he draped his suit over the back of his desk chair as he settled into another day at work.

_Happy six month-iversary. Here's a tip: Her favorite flowers are lilacs._

"McNab?" Carlton asked, approaching his partner's desk and holding the note out for him to see. "Do you know who put this on my desk?"

"No," McNab said with a shrug. "But I'm pretty sure that the handwriting is Shawn's."

Carlton raised his eyebrows, repeating, "Shawn Spencer? As in the bane of my existence who still hates me and continues to hold a grudge against me for taking his girlfriend?"

"He stopped making a big deal about it a few months back, didn't he?" His partner shrugged again, suggesting, "Maybe he's decided to get over it?"

Carlton studied the note that he still held, trying to figure this new development out before he eventually decided, "It's possible, but not likely."

He put the note in his pocket and turned to go back to his desk – and almost ran into a pretty brunette in the process.

Reaching out to steady her, he gasped, "I'm sorry… Abigail?"

"Hi, Detective," the kindergarten teacher said cheerfully. "Long time; no see. Speaking of which, have you seen Shawn around?"

"No," Carlton said, hesitantly asking, "So, are you two…?"

"Back together?" Abigail supplemented. "Yeah… um, we ran into each other a couple of months ago in town and just kind of… managed to start right back where we had left off, once he swore he would stop trying to get himself killed."

McNab smiled, saying for Carlton, "That's great to hear, Abigail. I think I saw Shawn over near the chief's office."

"Thanks, Buzz," Abigail said cheerfully, waving at them as she went off to find the man who was apparently once again her boyfriend. Buzz just raised his eyebrows as Carlton turned back to him with an incredulous look on his face. "I guess all things are possible," McNab said cheerfully.

Carlton started for his desk again, muttering to himself under his breath about buying Juliet some lilacs on the way home from work.

* * *

At the end of the day, he entered his home with the bouquet held behind his back. After receiving the customary kiss from Juliet, he held out the flowers, curious to see how she reacted to them – to see if the writer of the note was correct – as a sort of test of whether or not the note could've come from Shawn Spencer.

"Carlton," she practically squealed in gleeful surprise as she took the offered gift from him. "Lilacs?! How did you know that they're my favorite – or did you?"

"I do now," he said, trying not to let the thoughts suddenly whirling in his mind show up on his face.

"How?" she asked, turning to search the cabinets for a vase.

A surprising thread of respect for Spencer rose up in Carlton as he answered, "I don't think you'd believe me if I told you."

Juliet had obviously been right all those months ago when she said that Abigail was a good influence on Spencer. As it was, Carlton found that he was remarkably relieved at this sign of mature acceptance of the situation on the younger man's part.

"Try me."

"I don't think so," Carlton decided, shaking his head. "But I will tell you that they were for our 'six month-iversary.'"

Juliet put the vase of flowers on the counter and turned back to look at him, her eyes narrowing a little as she suggested, "Well, in that case, I think that we should celebrate a little better then with flowers."

"How so?"

"Wine," Juliet drawled, grabbing a bottle and a couple of glasses.

Carlton forewarned her, "If you're trying to loosen my tongue to find out about the flowers, it won't work."

"Would I do that?" Juliet asked, forcing an innocent expression onto her face – one that he knew better then to buy for a second.

"I've always heard that alcohol does work as a sort of truth serum," Carlton said, stepping forward to take the bottle from her. "You don't need to be drinking anyway; you're six months pregnant."

"One glass-" she pouted.

"No."

She huffed at him, but latched onto his first comment by way of changing the subject. "Alcohol is a truth serum, huh?" she paused as a new thought came to her, and her lips twitched as she said, "Yeah, that is true."

"How can you be so sure?" he asked, suddenly being dense enough not to see where she was taking the conversation.

"That's obviously what it took for us to get married and admit that we were in love," she grinned.

Carlton smiled back down at her, almost chuckling as he said, "I agree."

"Do you?" she said teasingly.

"Of course," he said, proving it with a kiss.

* * *

_Six months later_

One year. For one remarkable year, Juliet Lassiter had been married to the wonderful man in front of her. There had been ups such as welcoming their new baby boy Jackson into the world and downs like waking up in Vegas – although that had obviously had some pretty good results, so maybe it was just another up…

They had gone through a lot, and there had been a lot to overcome. Carlton had a difficult time at the station for awhile, what with the talk going around that he had messed up _another_ partnership – to the tune of sleeping with that partner, of course – and don't even get anyone started on how their marriage had began. Juliet herself had struggled for a long time with having to quit the SBPD, but now, between her job at the gun shop and hers and Carlton's two month old son, she was completely content with her life. Accept for one thing. It had always bothered her that she couldn't really remember her own wedding.

But that was why they were here renewing their vows – to give the guys at the department a new wedding to talk about, and to give Carlton and Juliet one that they could clearly recall to begin with.

Right now in this moment – thanks to heartbreak, "truth serum," Vegas, and Carlton's hand in hers – Juliet's life was perfect.

* * *

**Reviews make my day if you feel so inclined, especially since I'm not sure how good of a job I'm doing at writing these characters. Thanks! I hope you enjoyed this story; thanks for sticking with me until the end of it!:)**


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